Mystery · 28 chapters · by Royendgel Silberie · in english
"Please — I have a family—" Two shots, flat as a stapler. Twenty feet away, a man in a gray suit folds against a concrete pillar, and you freeze between…
Chapter 1: Level Three
"Please — I have a family—" Two shots, flat as a stapler. Twenty feet away, a man in a gray suit folds against a concrete pillar, and you freeze between parked cars, scrubs still warm from a fourteen-hour double. The shooter turns. Young face. Calm eyes. He looks straight at you and memorizes your face the way you memorize vitals. Your badge slips, clatters on concrete. He takes one step toward you.
What happens next? I run for the stairwell and scream for security. · I drop behind a car and memorize his face right back. · I go to the dying man. I'm a nurse.
Chapter 2: The Stairwell
You run. Heels of your sneakers slapping concrete, screaming for security into echo. The stairwell door bangs open before you reach it — two men in dark suits, not hospital, not police. "Miss Reyes." They know your name. Behind you, the shooter is already gone, like smoke. A black car glides up the ramp. "You need to come with us. Mr. Moretti insists." Moretti. The name from every headline your mother ever crossed herself over.
What happens next? I fight them — I'm not getting in that car. · I get in. Whoever Moretti is, he isn't the shooter. · I demand to know what Moretti wants with a nurse.
Chapter 3: The Beautiful Cage
You wake in sheets that cost more than your rent, in a room with sapphire drapes and a locked door. A girl sits cross-legged at the foot of the bed, black bob, chipped nail polish, watching you like a documentary. "Don't bother with the window. Third generation of nurses to try." She grins. "I'm Bianca. You're the witness." Down the hall, a clock chimes. "Get dressed. My brother's been waiting a year to talk to you."
What happens next? I storm downstairs and demand he let me go. · I play the polite guest and map every exit first. · I ask Bianca what her brother wants with me.
Chapter 4: Uninvited
You don't wait for permission. You march down a hallway of dead men's portraits and shove open the first important-looking door — into a wall of cigar smoke and silver hair. Not the brother. The uncle. Salvatore looks at you the way surgeons look at tumors. "The liability walks," he says softly, rosary clicking through his fingers. "In my day, witnesses were handled, not hosted." Behind you, a voice like dark water: "Zio. Enough."
What happens next? I tell them both I'm nobody's liability. · I turn to the voice behind me — and freeze. · I file the uncle under 'threat' and say nothing.
Chapter 5: 3:07
He stands when you enter, which mafia heirs presumably don't do for witnesses. Storm-gray eyes. The scar through his eyebrow that you cleaned with shaking hands a year ago. "You," you breathe. "Me," Luca says. On his left wrist, a beautiful ruined watch, crystal cracked, hands frozen at 3:07. He follows your gaze and something shutters. "You saw a man die last night. The shooter saw you. Until I find who sent him — you're mine to protect."
What happens next? I demand the truth: why does the shooter want me dead? · I ask about the watch. Why 3:07? · I tell him protection I didn't ask for is still a cage.
Chapter 6: Through the Wall
He tells you a careful half-truth — the dead man worked for the family, the shooter wasn't theirs — then is called away. You linger by the study wall Bianca showed you, where the flue carries voices. Salvatore, low and furious: "The nurse saw a face. Faces get families killed. Give me one night and she's a memory." And Luca, quieter, colder than you've ever heard a human being: "Touch her and I'll bury you next to my father."
What happens next? I confront Luca: I heard every word. · I keep the threat to myself and watch Salvatore. · I find Bianca — I need an ally in this house.
Chapter 7: Leverage
Luca lets you call your brother. Mateo picks up on the sixth ring — and it isn't Mateo. "Detective Renata Marsh, Organized Crime. Your brother's sitting across from me with a parole officer and a bag of pills that may or may not be his." Ice down your spine. "Here's the arithmetic, Sofia. You're inside the Moretti house. Wear a wire for me, and Mateo walks. Refuse—" a pause, paper shuffling "—and he's collateral."
What happens next? I refuse flat out. My brother is not your pawn. · I stall her — say I'll think about it. · I almost tell Luca everything that night.
Chapter 8: Dinner Bell
You hang up on Marsh and go down to dinner with your spine straight — into candlelight, silver, Salvatore's cold appraisal. You're reaching for water when the window bursts. Not glass-slow like movies: instant, everywhere. Luca has you on the floor beneath him before the second shot, his body a wall, shouting orders in three languages. Engines roar away down the north road. In the ringing silence, Bianca whispers what everyone is thinking: "They knew the patrol gap."
What happens next? I stay down and watch who reacts too calmly. · I check everyone for wounds — I'm still a nurse. · I grip Luca's hand and don't let go.
Chapter 9: In Italian
Past midnight, the study. Luca pours two whiskeys and finally says it plainly: "Enzo found payments in the family books. Money moving to the people who killed my father. He died before he could give me the name." He turns the broken watch on his wrist. "Tonight proves it. The traitor eats at my table." Then, so quietly, in Italian: "E stanotte ti ho quasi persa." And tonight I almost lost you. He doesn't translate. He doesn't have to.
What happens next? I tell him about Marsh, the wire, my brother — everything. · I say I'll help him read the books. Nurses chart everything. · I answer in the only Italian I know: his name.
Chapter 10: Dance With Me
The saint's-day party glitters downstairs — quartet, candles, the family in silk and armor. You slip up to your room for lipstick and your hand finds something wrong in your evening bag. Small. Warm. A hair-thin antenna. A wire. Not one you agreed to — planted, and the light is blinking. Live. Transmitting everything, since when? Footsteps. Luca in the doorway, breathtaking in black, hand outstretched, eyes soft the way they are only for you. "Dance with me."
What happens next? I close the bag, take his hand, and dance. · I show him the wire right now, live or not. · I crush it under my heel and smile.
